Cinderella wants to go to the ball and Ariel wants to be where the people are. Riki Lindhome is trying to get some balls to come to her so she can be where the people are (growing).
Venture into the infinite forest of her fertility journey in Dead Inside, a one woman musical odyssey that rejects both the structure of the cis straight white man’s hero’s journey and the audience expectation that a one act one woman musical won’t make everyone cry.
Lindhome alternates musical comedy with a series of gut-wrenching monologues so disarmingly genuine that by the end of the show much of the audience was in fact brought to tears.
Fans of Lindhome will recognize almost all of the songs in this show from her online work, with particular standouts “So Long Farewell (A Breakup Anthem for Baroness Schraeder),” “Bio Dad,” and “Hysteria,” all fully produced in music video format on her YouTube channel. The context provided by this play for those brilliant standalone works is intensely personal and at times uncomfortable.
The overall effect is heartwarming, and the project of destigmatizing pregnancy complications is absolutely a worthy one, handled deftly by an always incisive—and at this point, very well-seasoned—writer and performer in Lindhome.
Bring tissues. She won’t ask for blood and sperm, but she’s sure to get some tears and some laughs out of you.
Reviewer: Kira Daniels
Reviewed: 1st April 2026
North West End UK Rating:
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